International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

English
Pronunciation, Lesson 01

The International
Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA in short, will help you learn how to
pronounce correctly each and every word in English! But first, you need
to learn what it is, and how to use it. Read the
following explanation, and watch the videos. Answer the
questions in the end to
test your understanding.

The English language may have only 26 letters, but it has over 40
different sounds! You need to be familiar with each sound,
and its
proper pronunciation in order for you to speak natural English.

Watch the following video to see how learning the sounds of
English can help you improve your English pronunciation:

There is a special system that uses a group of symbols to represent
each sound.

Follow our tutorial to learn what sound
each symbol
indicates,
and how to pronounce thatsound correctly.

That way, you will learn and practice the actual sounds of English!

Here is the place to mention that this tutorial covers American
pronunciation only.

Some Definitions

The system of symbols is called International
Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA
in short.

Phonetic means
"using special signs to represent the sounds of speech".
It comes from the Greek word phone which means
"sound".

Vowel is a sound we
make when the breath flows out through the mouth freely,
without being blocked. The English letters a, e, i, o, u are called
vowels,
because they represent such sounds.
It comes from the Latin word vox
which means "voice".

Diphthong
is a vowel sound made
by pronouncing two vowels quickly one after the other. For example, the
vowel sound in "loud" is a diphthong.
It comes from the Latin word diphthongus
which means "two sounds".

Consonant
is a sound we make that is not a vowel. The breath is somehow blocked
on
its way out of the mouth. For example, the sound B
is made when breath flow is stopped with the lips. All
the English
letters which are not vowels are called consonants. These are: b, c, d,
f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z.

Watch
the following video to learn how to use the International Phonetic
Alphabet. It also gives a quick review of the sounds we will learn
later.

Have you read the explanations and
watched the videos? Great!

You are almost ready to move on to the next lesson, but before that,
make sure you know the answers to the following questions:

How many sounds (more or less) are there in the
English language?

What is the IPA?

How can the IPA help YOU?

What is a vowel?

What is a diphthong?

What is a consonant?

Have you answered the questions? Awesome!

Well done! You have completed the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
lesson.